Nagging, does it hurt marital bliss?

Nagging, the art of pestering someone over and over until they do what you want them to has imbedded itself into most relationships, but badly does it hurt us?

"It's more common than adultery and potentially as toxic, so why is it so hard to stop nagging?" wondered The Wall Street Journal.

Psychologists say it's so hard to stop nagging because of faith. If one person in a relationship fears their  partner won't do what they are supposed to, they feel compelled to keep asking their partner to complete the task.

After repeated asking, the partner gets annoyed, which makes it incredibly likely they won't want to cooperate. And the vicious cycle repeats.

The Wall Street Journal says that "it is possible for husbands to nag, and wives to resent them for nagging. But women are more likely to nag, experts say, largely because they are conditioned to feel more responsible for managing home and family life. And they tend to be more sensitive to early signs of problems in a relationship. When women ask for something and don’t get a response, they are quicker to realize something is wrong. The problem is that by asking repeatedly, they make things worse."

"Men are to blame, too, because they don’t always give a clear answer. Sure, a husband might tune his wife out because he is annoyed; nagging can make him feel like a little boy being scolded by his mother. But many times he doesn’t respond because he doesn’t know the answer yet, or he knows the answer will disappoint her," continued the Wall Street Journal.

 “Nagging is an enemy of love, if allowed to persist,” Dr. Howard Markman, professor of psychology at the University of Denver and co-director of the Center for Marital and Family Studies told the Journal.

Nagging can become a prime contributor to divorce when couples start fighting about the nagging rather than talking about the issue at the root of the nagging, said Dr. Markman.

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Information from The Wall Street Journal

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